Brief 5 / Inglenook Productions

Inglenookproductions

This is another live branding brief that I have been working on as part of my mini brief. 
Inglenook film and theatre productions want a new logo that is relevant to their name.


They also want a 20 second ident and new logo ideas.

Inglenook is a type of fireplace, and keywords relevant to this that would also be relevant to what the theatre company say about themselves include: warmth, gathering, intimate, originality, adventure, experience.

Initial Logo Ideas:

OO's could be eyes
Could be a glow from the darkness
Close kerning represents intimacy
People sat around the fireplace watching tv
Lights could flicker on and off
Colours used should represent warmth such as orange flames
Bold text adds impact

Initial Drawings:

LOGO IDEA 1.

- Retro feel - Thin font - Sophisticated - Fun / Original - Slightly spooky look - Elegant curves

LOGO IDEA 2.

Inglenook logo represents the warmth of a fire, (colour), intimacy of sitting around the fire (kerning), impact of the fire (Bold text), sophistication and professionalism of company (choice of typeface).Added shadows to the interlinking oo's to make it more obvious what it is.

Favourite Logo: (Gills Sans)

Logo applied to business card:

Printed on to 350gsm gloss.

Re-Written Final Briefs

Look at these posts to see the development of the briefs. As you can see the fourth brief has changed dramatically, and some are quite different to what I initially thought I would do. These decisions are explained on the relevant blog posts.

Brief Ideas 26/09/12
Briefs to discuss at tutorial 4/10/12
Briefs with Brief 1 added 12/11/12

Brief 1

Competition Brief + Type Skills Brief = Initial Written Brief
Tigerprint Brief
Final Brief

Brief 2

The Internet Initial Statement of Intent
Initial Statement of Intent
Brief Draft 2
Final Written Brief

Brief 3

Initial Statement of Intent
Final Written Brief

Brief 4

Graphic Design Museum Initial Statement of Intent
MGD Brief
Change of Direction
MCD: Final Written Brief 

Brief 5

Mini Brief

Final Briefs 5/12/12

Brief 4 / Final Written Brief

Brief 4 - Manchester Craft and Design Centre Branding

To create the re-brand for the existing Manchester Craft and Design Centre, and to apply this branding to a range of printed media to show both how the brand works as business stationery but also to show how the branding can work to help promote the centre. I will consider how the pieces would be distributed.

This will be a skills driven brief, allowing me to concentrate on improving my branding skills.

Background

Manchester Craft and Design centre contains two floors of contemporary studios of designers, with crafts to browse and buy. Areas of the arts covered by the studios include: paper craft, textiles, wood work, metal, painting, sculptures, ceramics, illustration, jewellery and clothing, furniture and more. Innovative craft and design exhibitions are also shown alongside the designers work. 

It has recently celebrated its 30th birthday, but the existing branding and website design does not reflect the high quality crafts on sale. It is also not very well advertised, with a lot of people not even knowing of its existence. 

Deliverables

• A new brand identity
• A new website design
• An invite to an exhibition night
• Posters to advertise opening night
• Business stationery: letterheads, envelope, business cards
• Shop packaging: bags and tags

Rationale
A skills driven investigation of branding and identity with a focus on printed promotional outcomes. 

Statement of Intent
I am going to create a re-brand for the Manchester Craft and Design centre, because I want to learn more about branding and identity, and to apply to this to a range of printed media.

Final Crit

Here are my boards at the stage of the final crit. Unfortunately I didn't give myself enough time as I needed to make these boards, so they are unfinished. But I still have questions that I want answering about my boards. These are:

1. Is the line under the logo needed?

2. Are the images too big or small?

3. Do I write about how the brief was before and include info about development or just final pieces?

4. Does anything seem a bit irrelevant?

5. What do you think about the overall layout style?

BRIEF 1

I didn't realise quite how long it would take to arrange the photos on to my boards. Some of my photos didn't work out as well as I thought they had as well so theres a few that I need to retake.

I also struggled to work out what should be bigger and what should be smaller in terms of images, but found it useful when I printed the boards out to size to work out what was what.

BRIEF 2

I think for this brief the actual icons are better than the final products, so I wanted to make a feature of these. It still needs a bit of tweaking but I have managed to organise the products well in terms of size. The collective group shot of the products didn't turn out so somehow I need to re photograph this.

BRIEF 3

I haven't yet finished, printed or photographed this brief. I am panicking a bit about this, but at least I will just be able to copy the format of the brief from the other boards.

BRIEF 4

These were the first boards I did, and I spent ages on the placement of the images so think they are working quite well, I just need to correct a few mistakes and finish adding the text.

BRIEF 5 

This is a mini brief that I only started the other day, so the boards won't need to be printed. There will probably only be one or two, which will be saved as a pdf on my blog, but these boards will be the same format as the others.

FEEDBACK

For this crit we looked around everyones work individually, then in groups looked round the other peoples work, considering: blog content, blog organisation, presentation boards content and organisation. I had my unfinished boards and all of my final products to get feedback on.

General

- MCD briefs - brilliant/relevant application of branding to promo - especially posters. Range utilised.

- Good photography. Clear range for all briefs. Clear presentation. Great use of stock and different applications to products.

- Really clear boards so far, everything looks really organised. Photos look really professional and clear, communicate well. Good use of different stock with final products - shows you have tried and tested different things to get the most from your briefs.

- The YCN brief is looking good. Internet brief is spot on. Good range of products - well photographed except one image which looks a little dark.

Person 1/

- Are you going to be adding more photos to the 2nd and 4th boards of the card brief? Too much space.

- Love all the imagery for the internet brief, looks amazing. Very well laid out and plenty of good images to show how everything fits together.

- Really clear information, everything so far that you have written is relevant. All work is explained well, with the brief on the boards.

Person 2/

- The lines on the board aren't needed

- You need a range of big and small images depending on what you are trying to communicate within the product shot. So use a variation, but make sure they work consistently across boards.

- Don't include development on boards

- Boards are clear and concise

- Good documentation of all. Design decisions and well evaluated each image posted.

- Well organised. Producing well informed design decisions.

- It is evident that you have clearly related your DC posts to your design practise

- Lots of imagery to convey the products now need to add text to explain the designs

- Think about how you are organising the images, line them up, spacing. 

- Have a vectored image also.

Person 3/

- Briefs are clearly labelled and very well documented.

- Evaluation is sometimes a little brief but is consistent throughout

- Seem to be on top of all your briefs

- Really good break downs on design context of how work relates to each brief

- Development of briefs is evident when scrolling through

- Good balance between image and type

- Maybe relate context blogging of processes to possible ambitions within your briefs

- Really concise descriptions - outlines each brief really well

- Consistent layout across boards

- Photographed really well

- Related header along bottom of page and given print specs

- Board for the branding of each brief?

- Could do with the brief titles on the boards.

- Possibly draw attention to the fact you've developed logos for each swell

- Boards are really easy to navigate and clear. Just finish descriptions and should be ready to print.

PLAN OF ACTION

- Pick up on points in feedback, including:

- Get rid of lines - not needed

- Add text, check grammar and spelling

- Retake a few of the lower quality images

- Add branding to all of boards, and box to put 3d products in to make it clear it is mine

Brief 3 / Final Quotes

After comments in the crits about some of the messages being quite difficult to read, I've removed unneccesary elements and made sure the phrases are easy to read, as obviously, legibility is an important aspect of graphic design. I've also noticed quite a few mistakes in the lines not being of accuracte sizes and things being unequal, so I've neatened everything up so the phrases are ready to have the shadows added to them in photoshop, so I can put them in the book.

The letters are now only joined in one place rather than every link, as it just looked too much before.

____________________________________________

Here is the original message.

A comment I received in feedback was that the h-i-n join really didn't work and made it quite confusing what the word is. I agree because it looks a bit like a u is hidden in there. So heres how I've changed it.

 

Here is the simplified phrase: (I later took out the link between the e and t)

And heres the final quote, with shadows:

____________________________________________

Here is the original message. I've added in lots of extra things like the squares and circles and I'm not really sure what the point was, so I've removed them.

Also I really didn't like this a to c join, so I've changed that. With the new c the gap between c and t looked too big so I've sorted this out. Looking at the kerning of the lettering was something I realised I needed to look at on each phrase.

Here's the simplified message:

With shadows:

____________________________________________

Here is the original message, again, theres too many pointless things in it!

I also really didn't like the look of the word new as it just doesn't fit in with the rest of the message.

So, I've changed it to this:

With shadows:

____________________________________________

Here is the original message.

This one didn't need many changes. 

With shadows:

____________________________________________

Here is the original message.

This was my favourite of the original quotes, but I think it looks a bit silly how I have put in a few capital letters, but only in like one or two messages.

I've made the m and r lower case and simplified the links.

With shadow:

____________________________________________

Here is the original message.

Like with the previous example, I have replaced the capitals. I also don't like the d, as I'm trying to  make the phrases as legible as possible so it needs to be changed.

Simplified:

With shadows:

____________________________________________

Here is the original message.

This one was really easy as not much needed to be altered.

With shadows:

____________________________________________

Here is the original message. This one is far too messy and really difficult to read.

There were some combinations of letters I really didn't like, such as:

The second t here looked a bit like an f so something needed to be done about that.

Simplified:

With shadow:

____________________________________________

This is a new quote I hadn't made a message for before, so was easier to make it simpler in the first place.

Some additions I tried making seemed too much, and I didn't want to fall in to this again.

Linked message:

With shadows:

____________________________________________

Another new message, I thought it would look better if the title was in the same style as the quotes in the book.

When I was joining up the letters, I realised the n here looks too much like a h.

Also, compared to the rest of the messages, the kerning seemed too wide.

Joined message:

With shadows:

____________________________________________

Another new message for at the end of the book, this was quite simple to do. I'd used these o's together in book so just re-created this.

Joined message:

With shadows:

____________________________________________

The next thing I needed to do was re-create these phrases with the colours reversed out, so the emerald green on the white background. Now that I'd already worked out where the shadows needed to go for each piece, this was easier than the original time.

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